gedblog

After a string of celebrity deaths last week comes the awful news that famed TV pitchman, Billy Mays, was found dead in his Tampa home this morning. Unlike Michael Jackson, Mays won’t have thousands of tribute parties thrown in his honor around the world. Mays also didn’t have the body of work or the rapport that actress Farrah Fawcett or Ed McMahon had with television audiences. While the passing of all of these famed individuals are sad occasions, I feel the most moved by the loss of Billy. Ironically, this wouldn’t have been the case a few months ago except that I’ve gained insight into the man via his series on the Discovery Channel - Pitchmen.

Until I started watching Pitchmen, I really hadn’t thought much about Mays except when he and his loud voice would boom across my TV screen to sell me OxiClean or another infomercial product. I usually changed the channel pretty fast and really didn’t give Billy the time of day. Then in April, Discovery started airing a series based on how infomercials are produced starring Mays and his pitch-partner Anthony Sullivan. The series followed the pair as they looked for the next big items to hock to the American public, gave us a peek at the process and the private lives of Anthony and Billy.

Through Pitchmen I learned that Billy Mays absolutely loved his family and his life as a salesman. He worked tirelessly to bring, what he thought, were the very best products into our home. Prior to Pitchmen I didn’t know that everything Mays pitched, he tested and stood behind 100%. If he wasn’t comfortable with a product, it wasn’t safe or it didn’t perform, it meant that Billy Mays didn’t put his name behind it. I also learned of the wonderful relationship he had with his son, Billy Mays III. His son had started to work with him on set and loved his dad with all his heart. When young Billy tweeted this morning that his dad was gone, it was a real shock. My thoughts and prayers go out to his son, his wife and young daughter in this difficult time.

I am grateful for the Discovery Channel’s look inside the life of Billy Mays before he passed. Although many people probably thought of him simply as the “loud infomercial guy”, as my wife says he was more than just a pitchman, he was a true icon. A man of gentle spirit, yet booming confidence. He loved his family and worked his entire life to get ahead. He brought a smile to my face, and made my life better in small ways with the products he pitched. I’m positive heaven will be an even cleaner place, now that Billy’s in it.

I’ve always loved Aqua ever since I first heard Barbie Girl, and now they’ve returned with the video premiere of their new hit - Back to the 80’s. Granted this tune is aimed square at Generation Xers like myself, but its still a great song. The beat is catchy and the lyrics are full of pop culture references like the Commodore 64, Banannarama and Moon Boots. Bravo Aqua, bravo!

A trip to the toy section of my local Target recently drove home the truism that “times change”. Kids toys are among the first to take advantage of new technologies but on this trip I wasn’t browsing video games, I was considering how much board games have changed since I was a kid. Oh sure you can still pick up the classics like Clue or Monopoly, but many of my favorite childhood board games are long gone. They were published when the world was less politically correct and parents didn’t sue toy companies at the drop of a hat. Here are three of the risque games I used to love to play as a kid. Strangely, all of them revolve around the ocean for some reason.

The Sinking of the Titanic (1975)

Here’s an idea: let’s take one of the worst maritime disasters in history and turn it into a child’s game where everyone except the winner drowns an icy death! Published in 1975 by Milton Bradley, The Sinking of the Titanic challenged players to escape their state rooms aboard the doomed luxury liner and make for the life boats as the ship slowly sinks into the frigid waters of the North Atlantic.

After the ship sinks, the players must get enough of food and water by visiting islands and/or drawing cards to stay alive until the rescue boat appears. The first player to make it to the rescue boat wins the game. The other lifeboats and all the other passengers in them are lost, leaving only the one victor and his/her passengers who are saved.

I love how it’s not enough to simply “win” the game, but how everyone who loses “dies”. How this game ever got made in the first place is beyond me, but I did have fun tilting the Titanic slowly below the waves with each roll of the dice. At the time, I don’t think I had any real understanding of the meaning of the game, which looking back, I’m sure was a very good thing since John Jacob Astor and Captain Smith were probably spinning in their watery graves.

The Bermuda Triangle (1976)

The 70’s were a big time for mysteries, myths and monsters so it’s not surprising that Milton Bradley would attempt to cash in on the biggest of them all, the Bermuda Triangle. For a kid who spent one too many Saturdays watching In Search Of… this game quickly became my all-time favorite. The rules were simple: maneuver your fleet of cargo ships safely around the parameter of the infamous Devil’s Triangle without getting gobbled up. Which ever player made it back to home port with the most valuable cargo won.

While the idea of transporting cargo was a nobel one, my friends and I often ditched that portion of the game, and simply tried to get our ships back to port in one piece. The game contained the ‘mysterious cloud’ - a plastic panel raised from the board on a central column - which moved around the board and twisted above the ships. There were magnets on the underside of the cloud and on top of the ships, so that if the cloud passed over your vessels you’d hear a “click” and your ships would be picked up and vanish from the board. Marvelous!

The Bermuda Triangle was another game that trafficked in the realm of real life tragedy. Although not as blatant as the Sinking of the Titanic, the game never-the-less played off of air and sea disasters in which people actually died. Despite this, I used to love the thrill I felt as my friends and I would spin the spinner and move “the cloud” closer and closer to our ships. While playing I’d often call out “Danger like dagger now!” Yes, I was a geek.

Jaws: The Game (1975)

As a child, I used to own toys and games based on movies I was not allowed to see. I’m not exactly sure why my parents thought it was okay for me to play with Kenner’s scary-ass Alien doll, even though I could never see the film. Likewise, my parents didn’t seem to mind when I asked for a copy of the official game based on the horror flick, Jaws, from Ideal. In the spirit of Operation!, Jaws: The Game was a brilliant and simple variant on pick-up sticks that boosted the creep factor up to 11.

Players would load up the mouth of the killer great white shark with all manner of flotsam and jetsam. The game would proceed as each player took turns fishing a single piece of junk out of the shark’s mouth until someone pulled the piece that made him snap. Who ever had the most pieces of junk at the end won. Even though I never saw the movie until years later, the toy shark still managed to give me the heebie-jeebies.

The toy would later be re-published simply as “Shark Chomp”, belying the sinister origins of the original. I remember the game having the added benefit of being completely water proof which meant it often made frequent trips to the bath tub with me. Looking back, I guess it’s a good thing I had no idea who Quint was or how he met his maker at the time. Ah, the innocence of youth!

Strange epilogue: As I was writing this post, Breaking News Online on Twitter broadcast that the last surviving member of the Titanic disaster, Milvina Dean, passed away in her sleep in Southhampton, England. I hope she’s up in heaven kicking the ass of Milton Bradley’s ghost.

Ask any parent what’s one of the first things they teach their kids and they’ll probably say “Don’t call people names.” It’s a lesson we all learn and one that helps keep discourse civil between functioning adults. Although we all do it occasionally, there are some that wield it so often it eventually becomes a crutch.

Right-wing radio host Rush Limbaugh is one such person. Rush has never been known for his ability to discuss topics like an adult, but over at Wikipedia they actually have an entire page dedicated to Rush’s on-air jargon that he uses to belittle and berate others. You can read the entire list, but here are just a few of the more egregious examples Rush uses on his daily show.

This list is just one of many reasons why the GOP has seen its most dramatic decline in membership in decades, despite what Dick Cheney thinks.

• Banking Queen - Barney Frank. Reference to Frank’s homosexuality, his seat on the House Financial Services Committee and the controversy surrounding his views that there were no problems with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Rush would often accompany this with a parody of the ABBA song, “Dancing Queen”.

• Bela Pelosi - Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), a pun on the name of Hungarian film star Bela Lugosi, best known for his portrayal of Count Dracula.

• Benedict Arnold - Nevada Senator Harry Reid, after the famous soldier and traitor.

• Feminazi - “Feminazis” are those that Limbaugh claims are so devoted to feminist ideology (and the pro-choice cause in particular) that they are as repressive and hostile to personal freedom as members of the Nazi party were in Germany.

• Nostrilitis, Nostrildamus - Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA).

• Senator Dick Turban - Senator Richard Durbin, (D-IL). Limbaugh began using this moniker after Durbin made controversial remarks on the Senate floor which according to Durbin’s critics amounted to a comparison of the alleged abuse of detainees at Guantanamo Bay by U.S. military personnel, with the war crimes of Pol Pot and Hitler.

• “Osama” Obama - President Barack Obama. Limbaugh uses this alternate name for Obama as a reference to Senator Ted Kennedy’s (D-MA) mis-speak during a luncheon at the National Press Club (Jan 11, 2005). Kennedy, making mention of Obama’s large win during the 2004 elections, stumbled over Obama’s first name, stating “Osama bin Laden, Osama Obama, Obamamam.”

The recent release of Twitterrific 2 for the iPhone has reminded me that software development is replete with truisms. The primary thing I have to constantly remind myself is that, no matter what you do, or how hard you work, you simply cannot please everyone. Anyone who works in a creative field knows that there will always be those who are unsatisfied with the result.

For iPhone developers, these people usually fall into the “if it just had feature X, I would use it” category, but every so often you get someone who just poo-poos your efforts. It’s easy for devs to fall into the trap of trying to keep everyone happy, but years of experience have taught me that this is a losing battle. Development quickly builds into a sort of “features arms race” that usually ends with bloated software and burnt out programmers. No, the answer is to design first and foremost for yourself. If you can produce a piece of software that you are happy with, then chances are the majority of your users will be too. The trick is trust your gut enough to tell the difference between constructive feedback and the nay-sayers so you can move beyond them when it’s appropriate.

The other truism I’ve found is that there’s always room for improvement. The new posting user interface for Twitterrific 2 demonstrates this point perfectly. All through beta testing, the posting UI was the same as it was in version 1. If you wanted to change your update from one type of tweet to another, you had to toggle the tweet type using a single icon on the post bar. Although this method had served well since our initial launch, neither us nor the beta users were satisfied. Their feedback, combined with Louie’s desire to improve the posting experience challenged us to do it better. The result was a re-designed UI that fulfilled user’s desires for posting clarity while giving the Iconfactory a big new feature to tout. The amount of work required to pull off the revised posting interface so close to the end of the beta was intense, but ultimately worth it.

Lastly, if there is one axiom that Twitter has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt it’s simply that if you give an inch, the Twitterverse takes a mile. Lately I’ve been seeing more than a few requests for Twitterrific to support Twitlonger, a service that allows you to “expand” on the 140 character limit that is at the very heart of Twitter. The argument goes that allowing long updates to be read directly in-app is preferable to having to post multiple tweets. This may indeed be true, but I hesitate to support any service that, for lack of a better term, subverts Twitter. Brevity is the soul of wit, and in Twitter’s case, its lifeblood.

In my opinion, any update that can’t be held within Twitter’s 140 character limit should be taken offline to email, Facebook or Friendfeed. What’s the harm in supporting a great service like Twitlonger you ask? Seemingly none, except that Twitlonger is a very slippery slope. Imagine typing a tweet of any length right in Twitterrific. When the message length exceeds 140 characters, the app automatically creates web page entry where your followers can read your magnum opus. Sounds great, except its no longer Twitter, it’s called a blog. Given how easily such a feature would be abused (as is evidenced by the Twitterverse’s aggressive adoption of RT), I don’t see Twitlonger support in Ollie’s future.

As developers, all we can do is our best. Sometimes our best is good enough and sometimes it doesn’t cut the mustard. I’ve been very pleased with the positive reaction that Twitterrific 2 has been receiving from the Twitter community. There are updates coming that address some of the most requested issues from the initial 2.0 launch, but I have no illusions that even these updates will satisfy everyone. Not to mention all those people out there who are patiently waiting for an update to the Mac version of Twitterrific. To them, I offer one last proverb - Good things come to those who wait.

SPOILER WARNING: This post contains major spoilers for J.J. Abrams’ new film Star Trek. I mean really, really big spoilers. If you don’t want to know about things that might ruin your enjoyment of this movie, then you really should stop reading now and go somewhere else.

So much has been said and written about the new Star Trek film from J.J. Abrams that it seems to make little sense to write my own thoughts up. But seeing as Star Trek has been such a big part of my life ever since I was a little boy, and given that I’ve often written about Trek in the past, I figured what the heck.

Overwhelming consensus seems to be that the film is “Great!”, “Fantastic!” and “Fabulous!” Of all the guys from work that I went to see the movie with, I think I was the only one who came out of the theater not jazzed. I think Corey might have had some reservations too, but overall he was very excited about it. Did I like it? Yes I did. Did I love it? No I didn’t, at least not yet.

The Good

There are tons of things in the new film that I liked and others I even loved. In no particular order they include:

• The cast: Every actor in the film did a wonderful job of translating their character for a new generation. I especially enjoyed Quinto and Pine as Spock and Kirk, but also thought Simon Pegg as Scotty was wonderful and was surprised by the turns put in by the actors behind Checkov, Sulu and Uhura.

• The twists: I had seen so much of the movie in the commercials and trailers leading up to its debut that I thought I knew what was going to happen. I was surprised and delighted therefore when Kirk wasn’t the one under Uhura’s bed, but was under her Orion roommate’s instead. Same goes for the scene with Kirk sitting in the Captain’s chair with his black shirt where Spock tells him to “Get out of the chair.” It was wonderful and went against what I thought was going to happen going in.

• Spock rejecting the Vulcan Science Academy: Loved this scene to death. Quinto played it to a perfect Spock “T” when he asked the elders about his “disadvantage” and basically told them to go to hell. If you had put Nimoy in that scene instead, it wouldn’t have played any differently. Brilliant stuff.

• The action: It was quite a roller coaster romp from start to finish and had great pacing. The time seemed to fly by while we were in the theatre which is always a good sign.

• Uhura & Spock: I thought the scenes with Uhura and Spock becoming close would bother me, but they didn’t at all. They were played very well by both actors and Abrams’ direction here was wonderful. I can’t wait to see where this goes in the sequel.

The Meh

• The music: Totally didn’t live up to Star Trek standards. The main theme (which Louie pointed out was used in almost every track of the film) seemed like it *wanted* to be Star Trek, but was just slightly off. I kept expecting to hear the familiar Next Gen theme at points in the movie, but didn’t.

• Engineering: Being the die-hard Trekkie I am, I didn’t really appreciate the way Engineering looked more like a chemical plant from 24 than the heart of the flagship of the Federation.

• Enterprise in Iowa: Sorry, but the Enterprise was never built on the ground. It just wasn’t and the entire ship was never intended to land either. If Roddenberry was around today he would have told J.J. this small fact to his face. A totally unnecessary and pointless scene that would have at least been semi-credible if it had taken place in San Francisco instead of Iowa.

The Bad

• Abrams’ wanting to have it both ways: The studio promised us that this wasn’t “Your father’s Star Trek” and made a big deal about how everything was different. In reality, the only things that were different were the things Abrams wanted changed. There were so many TOS classic references that when they were thrown in, they seemed oddly out of place. More than a few of them seemed gratuitous. If you’re going to promote the film as all new Trek, have the space balls to see it through to the end.

• The Kobayashi Maru: As a huge fan, this was the scene I was looking forward to the most. I had run this classic tale of how Kirk beat the no-win scenario in my head dozens of times. I had always imagined it that Kirk reprogrammed the simulation just enough to make it seem like the rescue was plausible through heroic actions or sheer guile. What we got instead was a smug, overly-cocky Kirk eating an apple while everyone around him is astounded to find that the simulation has been reprogrammed. The most throughly unsatisfying bit in the entire movie.

• The destruction of Vulcan & death of Spock’s Mom: Listen, I get that this probably only matters to geeks like myself, but it does. The destruction of Vulcan negates HUGE portions of Star Trek history and cannon. Sure, this is an “alternate reality”, and it was probably necessary for several of the plot points, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it. You know how you felt when Lucas made Greedo shoot first? The loss of Vulcan is like that for me.

In the end, it doesn’t really matter what I think of Star Trek. Everyone seems to love it and have hailed it as a wonderful re-boot of the series. To be honest, I’d rather have new Star Trek movies than not, so I can live with the parts I didn’t like, at least for now. I think by the time the inevitable sequel comes I’ll have come to terms with the disappointing parts of Star Trek and learned to see only the good stuff. After all, there is a great deal in the new film to like especially since I don’t enjoy being called a dickhead.

So much has happened this week that I wanted to get some random thoughts jotted down before I forgot them. So here’s a straight brain dump of what’s been running through my head these last few days. They include:

• I appreciate people’s right to organize and protest against their government. It’s extra special that the Tea Party crowd wasn’t forced into “free speech zones” like so many who protested the Iraq war just a few years ago.

• No matter how bad things got during W’s presidency, I can’t remember any Democratic governor calling for his/her state to secede from the union. Can you?

• If Texas wants to become it’s own country let them. It’ll be interesting to see how long it takes them to rejoin the union once hurricane season starts. (hat tip to Dave for this one)

• When major corporations like Time Warner say they have “no choice” but to hike internet rates by a factor of 10, what they really mean is “until legal action is threatened”.

• Newspapers could go bust at any moment, talk radio stations are dangling by mere threads and local TV stations are all but doomed.

• I’m thinking of organizing an anti-tea, “coffee day” grass roots campaign for those of us who support our President and our government. Honk if you’re with me.

• Note to tea-baggers: our President is doing precisely what he campaigned on which is one reason why the majority of the country elected him. Deal with it.

• I pay less taxes now than I did during the last administration.

• Companies like Time Warner are the reason why the phrase “by hook or by crook” exists. Don’t let your guard up for one single moment. Call for regulation and increased competition.

• President Obama is less than 1/24th of the way through his first term. If the tea-baggers don’t pace themselves, it’s going to be a very looooong 4 years.

• To protest wasteful spending, conservatives and libertarians bought over a million tea bags this past week, most of which will ultimately be discarded.

• I need to find and buy stock in tea companies. (hat tip to Brad Krantz)

The momentum behind exposing Time Warner’s recent rate hike and bandwidth cap here in Greensboro is growing. Bloggers have been writing and setting courses of action. Local news crews have weighed in and the News & Record’s own Joe Killian has reported on the subject several times. Even our local officials, like Greensboro’s mayor Yvonne Johnson has spoken up and said she’ll do whatever she can to help bring Internet competition into the area. Everyone’s talking, with two notable exceptions: FM Talk’s own morning team Brad Krantz & Britt Whitmire.

Brad & Britt have always done a great job of bringing issues, especially local ones to the forefront here in the Triad. Although they have critics on both the left and the right, they always speak from the gut and give it to the listener straight up. Until Now. In an ironic twist of fate, Brad & Britt remain silent regarding an issue that has people in Greensboro upset and dying to vent on air. You see, Time Warner Cable is one of FM Talk’s biggest advertisers.

Britt Whitmire is extremely tech savvy and has dragged his older partner, Brad Krantz, kicking and grumbling into the world of Facebook and Twitter. Britt’s even joined the fake Twitterer’s club and created for-fun accounts for Fake Dan Rather and Little Rush so we can enjoy his musings at any time of the day or night. But even Britt seems powerless to rock the boat when it comes to corporate sponsorship.

When the news about Time Warner’s preposterous rate changes first broke in Greensboro, I sent an @reply to Britt to see if they could raise the topic on their morning show. Britt’s response disappointed me, but deep down, I understood it. I often must resist writing blog posts critical of services or companies for which I do design work for at the Iconfactory. But unlike Britt, my job isn’t to get people talking about national and local news & events. FM Talk’s management have no doubt cut the duo out of the loop on this important issue, which is unsettling.

At WOAI-AM in San Antonio, Texas, conservative talker Joe “Pags” Pagliarulo is taking the opposite approach and getting his callers to talk up a storm on the subject. He hasn’t bought Time Warner’s excuses for fleecing his listeners and is fighting the good fight against corporate greed. It pains me that folks in Texas can speak their mind, but thanks to FM Talk’s sponsorship from Time Warner, the Triad is left out in the radio cold. If it bothers you too, then head over to FM Talk 101.1’s contact us page and petition management to allow discussion of Time Warner on Brad & Britt. Be professional but firm and let the suits know the Triad needs to talk about this issue on air.

I often hear Britt plug Time Warner on my morning drive to work. I used to get a smile from hearing him promote Apple TV to download the latest movies and TV shows via his Roadrunner broadband service. Now, when I hear him talk about this latest internet gadgets I feel sorry. One day Britt’s going to go download a movie, find out he’s over his bandwidth limit and pay an extra $1 per GB just like the rest of us. We can only hope he and Brad will eventually wake up and do their part as Triad citizens to raise awareness of Time Warner’s greed. If it helps ease the sting of upsetting a sponsor, I’m willing to bet talking about Time Warner’s rate hikes would be a ratings bonanza.

UPDATE: Britt has responded in the comments below and states that it was in no way the management at WZTK that kept them from talking about the Time Warner situation in Greensboro, it was Brad & Britt’s decision alone. Since that’s the case, readers should direct their pleas to discuss the topic on air to the hosts themselves and not the station. Thanks.

I love the whole concept of flash mob performances, but this special event from Belgium has to be one of the very best. The moment when all the kids rush down the stairs is just wonderful. Bravo everyone, bravo!

… you brainstorm a whole list of updates ahead of time then plan your weekly schedule around when and where you’ll tweet them.

… you have to ask the Twitterverse their opinion before seeing a movie, eating out, or buying video games.

… get disappointed whenever you see a bird that isn’t some shade of blue.

… you start adding “tw” to words ie: tweeple, twidiot & twutorial. (by @kpiper)

… after witnessing a crime, instead of calling 911 you fire up Twitter.

… you’re excited that you have more followers than @jesuschrist (by @mantia)

… you think life would be better if you could just have 10 more characters.

… you convince your parents to start using Twitter because it’s so cool and then decide to block them because you realize how uncool it is that your parents are on Twitter.

… you think @cobracommander, @darthvader and @scobleizer are real people.

… you tweet from the bathroom.

… tweeting is more important to you than being Jennifer Aniston’s boyfriend.

… you consider moving so you can be at the top of your local Twitter Grader list.

… you wish people speaking in multi-sentence paragraphs would GET TO THE F*CKING POINT. (by @panache)

… you’re bummed when you don’t see the Fail Whale in days.

… you hit “Command-R” to refresh an AIM chat window (by @panache)

… you ask the Twitterverse for help with a blog post about Twitter.